DLUHC delegation visit our Redditch town centre developments

On Monday 15 January, the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) sent a delegation of civil servants to visit some of our housing schemes near Redditch City Centre.

The purpose of the visit was to see how we’re leading on the regeneration efforts near Redditch Train station with an investment of £35million which will see 200 high quality new social homes built.

The DLUHC visit was also a fact-finding mission, for the Department, to discover more about community-led housing projects and hear firsthand about how housing cooperative’s function.

The delegation was taken on a guided tour of:

• Passingham Place which is a recently completed scheme providing 40 one and two bedroom apartments for social rent
• Our innovative virtually plastic-free homes at CHARM building comprising 12 one-bed apartments
• Victoria Works which, once complete, will provide 75 new affordable homes.

Carl Taylor our Director of New Business and Growth said: “It was a pleasure to host the visitors from the DLUHC. We were proud to provide a guided tour of our virtually plastic-free homes and Passingham Place which are part of £35million regeneration plan in Redditch.

“The team from DLUHC were impressed to hear how we worked with the community throughout the process of building these new schemes. The delegation was interested to find out how the homes are managed now that they have been handed over to local housing cooperatives to run.”

Following the tour,  the DLUHC team had a roundtable discussion with Les Harborne, Chair Winyates Cooperative Homes, Linda Waugh, Board Member, Pioneer Co-operative Housing and Hazel Lengden, Locality Manager, Redditch Cooperative Homes.

During the discussion the representatives from the cooperatives were able to share insights based on their experiences of securing sites for development, engaging with the local community to get support for housing schemes and then managing homes through a cooperative model.

Linda Waugh, Board Member at Pioneer Cooperative Housing, said: “Living in cooperative-run housing has had an amazing impact on my family and I. During the visit, I was able to share my experiences of how working with my neighbours to help manage our homes has given us a sense of belonging, ownership and pride in our little community.”